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Storytelling and Community Engagement

How a Colorado Title V Maternal and Child Health Program used storytelling to inform a Needs Assessment

AMCHP Partnering for Engagement 2025

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1.29.25

Digital accessibility statement

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Who we are

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Srisahanaa Chandramohan

Youth Partnership for Health

Reid Bryan She/Hers

Maternal & Child Health Liaison (CDPHE)

Lyz Sanders

MCH Deputy Director

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE)

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Today’s Objectives

You can articulate why storytelling is an effective tool for community engagement

You can name at least 3 considerations for using storytelling as part of a community engagement process

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Today’s Agenda

Once upon a time, Colorado needed to conduct a Title V Maternal and Child Health Needs Assessment

After much consideration, we decided to use storytelling for community engagement

And then… the community told us their stories (pssst one of them is here today!)

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Through challenges we learned about storytelling, and communities’ needs

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In conclusion, we used those stories to inform our program

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Reid

Once upon a time, Colorado set off on a quest to conduct a Title V Maternal and Child Health Needs Assessment. After much consideration and the advice of a wise sage, they decided to use storytelling to engage the people. The team listened to the young people. They asked questions of the people who had lived many things.

As they began their journey they stumbled slightly at first. But despite a rocky start, they corrected course and learned to be flexible and lean on each other. For each stop on the journey to a different region of Colorado brought its own unique set challenges.

Many kind local leaders from the various regions provided invaluable help along the way in their journey.

They heard many things from the people of Colorado and they brought back their sacred stories to the council of decision-makers. And this is how the sacred stories helped forge the path for the Colorado MCH team.

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Statement of Support

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Today we will be sharing stories with each other about a trusted adult from your youth.

Depending on your own experiences, this topic could feel heavy, sensitive, or triggering.

Please only share what you feel comfortable sharing.

Please take care of yourself in whatever way you need to.

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9:10

Reid: Because this session is about storytelling, let’s warm up with some collective storytelling around a topic we will be highlighting today. Sahanaa will kick us off with a story she shared as part of the community engagement process we will describe in more detail.

Sahanaa story:

At the beginning of the school year, my English teacher was just another adult in the building someone I didn’t really talk to, someone who was there to teach essays and books. I would walk into her class, sit down, and keep to myself. I never expected that she would become one of the most impactful people in my life.

As time went on, though, something started to shift and I started to shift. Debating in class wasn’t new to me, but speaking up the way I did in her class was. Before, I was the kind of person who had all these thoughts in my head but never really said them out loud. I was afraid of being wrong, of not sounding smart enough, of people not caring what I had to say. But in her class, something changed.

It was like, for the first time, I felt safe to share what I was thinking. Whether we were talking about Foucault’s Panopticon — and how people control themselves because they think someone’s always watching — or reading Letter from Birmingham Jail and learning how to stand up for what’s right even when no one else will, I found my voice. I realized that my perspective mattered, that I could say something and people would actually listen. And that was powerful.

But as much as I grew in class, what mattered even more was how she treated me outside of class. She noticed when I was struggling — when I wasn’t myself — and instead of brushing me off or telling me she was busy, she stood there and listened. Even when she had mountains of papers to grade, she always made time for me.

There were days when I was really struggling with myself — questioning my worth, feeling lost — and she was the one person who made me feel like I wasn’t invisible. Sometimes I would talk to her about how badly I wanted to be a cardiothoracic surgeon, like really really wanted it, and she would listen like it was the most important thing in the world. Other times I would ramble about some random homework assignment that was stressing me out, and she would just be there for all of it.

Because of her, I felt heard — not just as a student, but as a person. And that changed everything. I became more confident in who I was. I started to believe that maybe I could do something big with my life.

Even after I wasn’t in her class anymore and didn’t visit her room as often, she still made time to check in with me. She would stop me in the hallways and ask how I was doing, how life was going, how HOSA competitions were turning out. She remembered the little things, and that made a big difference.

Looking back, I realize she didn’t just teach me English — she taught me how to find my voice, how to speak up for myself, and how to believe that what I say matters. She made me feel like I was worth listening to, and because of that, I became a better student, a better leader, and a better person. I’m not sure she’ll ever know how much she changed my life at that time, but I’ll never forget it.

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Who was your trusted adult?

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www.Menti.com 9541 9757

Reid and Sahanaa

Thank you Sahanaa for sharing how your English teacher created a safe space of care and belonging and supported you in finding your voice.

Now it's your turn to share a story of a trusted adult from your youth. If you have a smartphone you can use your camera app to activate a link from this QR code, or you can go to Menti.com and enter the code. If you are unable or prefer not to share with the group, you can reflect privately on a piece of paper.

Think back to your youth, who was your trusted adult and how did they show up for you?

What made them trusted?

9:15-9:25

3 minutes mentimeter
3 minutes one partner switch 2 minutes second partner
2 minutes reflecting

First we will gather responses on this mentimeter cloud.

Now we are going to partner up, so turn to someone next to you and share just a little more about your story of trusted adult. You have about 3 minutes.

Ok lets come back together (sorry I don’t have a squeaky chicken to get your attention lol)

I would love to hear some reflections as a big group

How did it feel for you to tell your story to a person that you don’t know?

What made it _________________(fun, exciting, awkward, vulnerable)?

Food for thought: When we tell our stories in front of strangers, we gain more consideration for what it is like for community when we ask them to do the same. Based on your experience, please reflect in your own minds, what would you do similarly? How would you do that differently that we did? Why trust is important and how could you cultivate it?

Now I am going to turn it over to Lyz to tell you a bit more about the Needs Assessment process

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MCH Needs Assessment Overview

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Lyz

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s (CDPHE) Maternal and Child Health Program (MCH) conducts a statewide needs assessment every five years to understand the health and well-being of women, infants, children, and youth, including those with special health care needs and their families. The purpose of the statewide needs assessment is to identify the issues that the MCH population is currently facing within Colorado, and use the information collected during the assessment to select specific priorities, strategies, and metrics for the next five-year grant cycle.
This is a busy slide but shows the timeline and multiple phases of our needs assessment.. The main takeaway is how we integrated storytelling into the phase where we collect data and engage stakeholders (highlighted in red).
Beginning in December 2022 with an intentional process design, we wanted to ensure that we captured the full picture of MCH needs across the state, and in particular community voice and those of our partners in local public health agencies and community based organizations. .
From October 2023 through September 2024, we engaged in extensive quantitative and qualitative data collection.

First we did what any reputable public health department would do and gathered and reviewed statistical data on key MCH measures. But we wanted to go farther this time around. We wanted to give context to quantitative data and validate these topic areas against the expertise of community
GO TO NEXT SLIDE TO DESCRIBE Listening Tour

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Listening Tour Purpose

To collect input from communities and partner organizations on the selection of the performance measures that most closely reflect the issues impacting Colorado's MCH population.

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Why Storytelling?

www.Menti.com 9541 9757

Reid

9:35

(Ask Audience)

Before we tell you why we chose storytelling in our listening tour sessions, we want to hear from you. Why do you think storytelling is important for community engagement? What are the benefits? How does it help you partner for impact?

And you might recognize the person on this slide from yesterday’s closing session. When we were considering using storytelling, we decided to enlist the expertise of a consultant Dr. David Fakunle. Dr. Fakunle is a professor at Morgan State University and owner of a consulting business DiscoverME/RecoverME: Enrichment Through the African Oral Tradition Over three months, we completed 9 hours of training and consultation that included community members from our advisory board.

OK let’s look at some of the results from the mentimeter

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Why Storytelling?

Universal Art Form
Voice is power
Listening is acknowledgement
Mutually beneficial exchange
Fosters vulnerability, trust and empathy
Creates connections

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Why Storytelling for Community Engagement?

Give context to quantitative data
Honor lived experience
Allow communities to share their own priorities and solutions (using their words)
Storytelling as data

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What was it like for community?

Sahanna

9:40

During the listening tour sessions I felt seen and heard because as my fellow youth board members and I shared our perspectives adults asked lots of questions and showed they were really engaged and respected my opinion
I felt like I was able to highlight a perspective the adults on the call had never considered and help break down the stereotype that youth aren't mature enough to care or think deeply about these issues, which a lot of adults mentioned during this session.
As I reflect on my experience, there are many communication differences and age gap perspectives that can often be a barrier in realizing/understanding that youth and adults often share interests/concerns around the same issues and storytelling seemed to help break down that barrier and bring some things to light.
Magic of storytelling is that it spans across ages/cultures. Storytelling highlights what we have in common (otherwise we spend time trying to convince each other of our different perspectives).

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What did we hear?

Trusted Adults Themes

Need to help parents/caregivers prioritize their own mental health to help care for their adolescents’ mental health
Youth feeling pressure to heal generational trauma, do not want to speak to their parents/caregivers about their mental health
School teachers, counselors identified as trusted adults
Need for trusted adults who understand the culture/ language/ experiences of youth

“We’re surrounded by adults who do not take care of their own mental health.”

- Youth quoted in CHI report*

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Using storytelling data to inform our work

NPM 16 - Trusted Adult Selected

A new strategy emerged from the youth conversation under a priority called Social Connectedness

Strategy 3: Address intergenerational healing and connection

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Sahanaa

The state team used the Listening Tour data, along with other criteria to choose the national performance measure around youth having a Trusted Adult, NPM 16. The Trusted Adult NPM as some of you might be familiar is the Percent of adolescents, ages 12 through 17, who have one or more adults outside the home who they can rely on for advice or guidance
Choosing this NPM led to identification of a priority called “Social connectedness”.
And under the social connectedness priority three strategies were chosen, one of which, as you can read on this slide, directly honors some of the sentiment shared by youth in Colorado who also expressed the desire to prioritize mental health in their support systems: Strategy 3 aims to address intergenerational healing and connection.
Some example activities include Intergenerational healing, cross generational connections and postpartum bonding/connection

And now I will pass it to Reid to talk about some lessons learned around storytelling.

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Considerations for Storytelling

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Trauma-informed

Share back how stories are used

Honor the storyteller’s WHY

Tell your own story first, get permission to tell another’s

Stories come in all shapes and sizes!

Reid

9:45

So we want to share some lessons we learned along the way about storytelling. We definitely don’t have it all figured out but hopefully these considerations can be is a start of a conversation.

Trauma-Informed

During one of the listening tours a participant shared with us that they felt “triggered” and we realized we needed to take a trauma-informed approach to these conversations. We added statement to our sessions to prepare folks for what might come up and in order to create more psychological safety, something we modeled earlier. The trauma-informed statement can be very simple, it warns people the topics you will be exploring so they can anticipate what emotions might come up for them, and encourages them to take care of themselves. We also facilitated a mindful moment to support people navigating their emotions. The mindful moment was a quick somatic body scan with some breathing to help folks regulate

We also realized that people wanted to share resources to help each other so having an outlet for those resources to be shared and having some of our own on hand as well is necessary. That being said, I think its important to note that sometimes a story just needs to be shared and heard without having others try to “fix” it, so you have to make sure people are open to receiving resources as well.

Tell your own story first

We opened each listening tour session with a staff member sharing a story that modeled the vulnerability we were asking folks to bring. It created trust and signaled this was a different kind of meeting.

Get permission to tell the story of someone else

We shared a confidentiality norm in our meeting stating that “what was learned could leave our session, but stories needed to stay without explicit permission from the storyteller.” We made sure it was very clear when we were recording during the meeting. We asked folks to only share what they were comfortable sharing and that all stories were welcome - those of success and challenges, no single narrative or type of story was being requested or prioritized. In follow up, we asked explicit permission to tell someone else’s story and checked in to make sure we got it right.

Honor the storyteller’s WHY

Sometimes people hesitate to open the can of worms that is storytelling. What if the story isn’t relevant, or doesn’t have a point to it? What if its problem-focused? A powerful question to help someone tell their story in a powerful and focused way is to ask, “What do you want people to take away from your story?” (Let me REPEAT that). This helps the storyteller focus on the reason they want to tell the story, and think about what it would be like to be someone else listening to their story so that they can be clear about what takeaways they want to express. The listener is showing they are committed to honoring the “WHY” of the storyteller (as opposed to WHY of the listener). You have to be careful not to unintentionally “use” people for their story, so understanding their why will hold you accountable to honoring what they want to get out of it.

Share how stories are will be used

If you are going to ask people for their stories, you should know what you are going to do with them. Be intentional about envisioning a purpose for those stories. And after you collect stories, share back with stortyellers how that story touched the hearts of others, helped someone think about something differently, or directly correlated with a decision or direction for your program. Sahanaa shared that she felt seen and heard. You should have seen her face when she saw in our report that something she said was captured as data to illustrate a theme, and when she realized that the feedback her peers had given about intergenerational trauma was integrated into a strategy. You have to close the loop.

Stories come in all shapes and sizes.

Remember that storytelling is as old as time, we are all storytellers. You tell stories every single day in your daily life, storytelling comes naturally, it is what we do as humans. And stories don’t have to be only the traditional story arc in a long written or verbal format, they can be quotes, poems, art, photographs, feelings. Storytelling is about listening deeply and honoring the experience someone has shared, however it was communicated. We learned that a few stories that we heard during the listening tour needed more space to be heard, so we ended up doing 1:1 interviews in follow up with a few more folks.

Next I will pass it to Lyz to talk about the impact and whats next

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Did it work?

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I am amazed at your listening skills and actually really encouraged that my story and my son's may be a little part of making a difference. I truly appreciate it.

- Rural Listening Tour participant

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Want to know a bit more?

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Want to know a lot more?

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Thank you!

This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Colorado Maternal and Child Health Block Grant 6 B04MC45202. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.

Accessibility statement and support.